Beach hotel for sale again
Two years after buying a landmark Montecito hotel that had fallen into disrepair, Beanie Baby tycoon Ty Warner has announced that the Miramar is for sale -- a turnabout that surprised area residents who said they had welcomed the billionaire’s help in restoring the dilapidated seaside property.
Warner, an intensely private businessman who has collected area resorts the way Beanie Baby fanciers collect the plush toys, is selling because of “extreme bias” against him by two influential community groups, his spokesman, Greg Rice, said Wednesday.
Rice said the Montecito Assn., a homeowners group, and the Montecito Planning Commission have “given us trouble on other projects and let other people fly right through.”
Representatives of both groups disputed Rice’s remarks.
“We were among those who were thrilled when he bought the Miramar,” said Robert Collector, president of the Montecito Assn. “If you look at the sheer volume of what’s he doing, he’s gotten about 98% of everything he wanted.”
Warner’s holdings in Santa Barbara County include the Montecito Country Club, the Four Seasons Biltmore and San Ysidro Ranch -- lavish properties all purchased since 1999. Saying he was planning to spend at least $700 million on purchasing and upgrading such legendary local fixtures, he bought the shuttered Miramar for $43 million in 2005. At the time, he predicted it would become “one of America’s premier resorts.”
Some neighbors were so delighted that they hired an aerial photographer to shoot them on the Miramar’s beach with a banner that said: “Life’s a beach! Thank you Ty.”
Since then, Rice said, Warner has spent $3 million on plans that he never presented, fearing that the homeowners group and the Planning Commission would arbitrarily turn them down after prolonged deliberations.
“If someone else took our plan and filed it, they’d be happy,” Rice said of the community groups. He said Warner had received offers of about $50 million for the old hotel.
Warner bought the Miramar from New York hotelier Ian Schrager, whose planned renovation was stalled for six years for lack of funds.
Warner’s pullout puzzled the Montecito Assn.’s Collector, who suggested that the reasons might have more to do with the economy than with Warner’s allegedly rough treatment by community groups.
The latest battle was a years-long conflict over a proposed set of stairs leading down to the beach from the sidewalk across from one of Warner’s other holdings.
Rice said the commission had rejected plans for the stairs, which matched the design of the hotel’s brick walkways, because they were “too pretty.” But others said Warner had exaggerated the conflict.
